Made In America - La Luz, "It's Alive" (2013)

I don't know what it is about 60's inspired surf-rock that's really grabbed my attention lately. In my first blog post for "Made In America" I swooned over L.A. surf-punks Bleached and then again in May with The Allah-Las. This week we head back up the west coast for Seattle's La Luz.

Shana Cleveland (guitar), Marian Li Pino (drums), Abbey Blackwell (bass), and Alice Sandahl (electric piano) formed La Luz just last summer and quickly self-released a five song EP Damp Face which was named after a steamy summer recording session in an un-airconditioned apartment in Washington state. The EP has since then been picked up and re-released digitally and on cassette via Burger Records. The ladies, known for their tight and interactive live shows, straddle and sometimes blur the lines between near-riotous danceable garage rock and etheral mood music. The music is crafted well enough to hold up as Ventures-style instrumental, with that wet Fender slack-jawed reverb and punchy electric piano, but it's the atmospheric vocals and quad-harmonies that really pushes you over the edge and into that warm salty water.

Made In America - Allah-Las

So far it's been a wet, sloppy, and unseasonably cool spring, even by southern standards, but I'm already sweating just thinking of that one-two punch coming here inthe southeast where Mother Nature leads off with face numbing heat only to catch you off balance with her muggy blanket of humidity. It sounds more like evil super powers than it does climate but either way you're getting a beat down.

Even with that I've been on a big 60's surfy garage-rock kick lately and what better way to get that itch scratched that to stick with the West Coast.

Los Angeles' the Allah-Las have a throwback sound directly descending from early Kinks and The Animals and if it were possible to get any lower-fi than 60's garage rock then these guys have managed to do so. The quartet formed in 2008, three of the four members met while working at renowened music shop Amoeba Records in Los Angeles. They relesed three singles over the next four years leading up to their full lenght debut Alla-Las which came out last year on the Innovative Leisure label with initial pressing selling out quickly.

Never straying far from mid-tempo, Allah-Las manages to soothe you over with a dozen seductively laid back tunes that beg to be listened to through a pair of vintage headphones while staring through your bedroom window deep into that afternoon sepia glow. The album plays evenly beginning to end and is one of those that really should be listend to that way. It doesn't belong on your iPod on shuffle-play; this one was made for vinyl.

The Allah-Las are currently touring through Europe and will be playing the Primavera Sound festival in Barcelona in May.

Allah-Las: Tell Me (What's On Your Mind)